is newburgh impoverished? ive not been to the city only the airport there.
Newburgh is an interesting little city. It went through urban renewal twice, I think. The first time failed miserably, as will the economy if we simply dump money into things without retraining a persons behavior and patterns. The second renewal did up the arts alot, added a bunch of money into some new housing projects that are very nice starter condos and such and also threw money into student aged art programs and grants at the local community college. The city did forgot to ask the heroin addicts and central american illegals and sorry, African American Puerto Rican gangs shooting each other in broad daylight while the nice suburbanites were trying to tour one of GW's early encampment sites. It's a freaking dump for the most part. But they made the fringe and the center streets real purty. Opening up Stewart Field as a commercial airport was one of the best things to happen to travelers looking for an alternative to Newark and LaGuardia, even Westchester.
yes thats a great airport. i wish they had more service out of there. i absolutely hate going to jfk or laguardia. especially lga the runway scares me.
NY State has been a good example of minor changes that can make huge positive impacts. Like recognizing the right project in the wrong place and vice versa. Alot of places just try things out, dump the money in, hurry it along and call it a failed project. Not good thinking any longer.
Now I'm getting homesick. For the eastern side of the Hudson.
it is a beautiful river. i like the areas by west point and peekskill harbor and theres something about the stretch that runs through new york city that just brings up all sorts of emotions for me.
Yeah! pics from Psych AND an added bonus, they're from NY. Sounds, looks, like a great day trip. I hadn't been to Albany myself in years. Last I was it had the feel of some of the industrial towns that are billowing tumbleweeds in NH, PA, Detroit and really all over the place now. It's a shame.
imo its all about the arts. if there are arts communities the rest follows suit. albany had that in spades, same with pa btw lots of culture and activity going on there. i especially liked the openness of the people yesterday. thats so rare in a city where most people have their eyes down to the sidewalk when they pass you. cant speak to detroit because i havent been there in many many years. people want to go to cities if there is something there for them. the two closest to me in the other direction, springfield and hartford are dead cities. there is nobody there after 5pm or as someone recently said the only people who venture in after dark are the drunks looking for cheap booze. that about sums it up but both of those cities are trying hard for renewal but are looking to build that renewal on things like malls with the gap or other expensive stores rather than a vibrant arts scene. nobody is going to go to the city, pay for parking, walk around on unsafe or perceived to be unsafe streets to shop for things that they can get at their local mall without all of the bother. bring on the arts, bring on the sports teams, fund theatre and museums make them low cost so families will come and spend money on the rest of what goes on in the cities and everybody wins.
The neat thing about it is the possibilities for urban renewal, sans the drugs and violence. That never worked in NY when the state tried to move the "ghetto" and centralize it to Newburgh. Keep sharing!
is newburgh impoverished? ive not been to the city only the airport there.
Newburgh is an interesting little city. It went through urban renewal twice, I think. The first time failed miserably, as will the economy if we simply dump money into things without retraining a persons behavior and patterns. The second renewal did up the arts alot, added a bunch of money into some new housing projects that are very nice starter condos and such and also threw money into student aged art programs and grants at the local community college. The city did forgot to ask the heroin addicts and central american illegals and sorry, African American Puerto Rican gangs shooting each other in broad daylight while the nice suburbanites were trying to tour one of GW's early encampment sites. It's a freaking dump for the most part. But they made the fringe and the center streets real purty. Opening up Stewart Field as a commercial airport was one of the best things to happen to travelers looking for an alternative to Newark and LaGuardia, even Westchester. NY State has been a good example of minor changes that can make huge positive impacts. Like recognizing the right project in the wrong place and vice versa. Alot of places just try things out, dump the money in, hurry it along and call it a failed project. Not good thinking any longer.
Now I'm getting homesick. For the eastern side of the Hudson.
Yeah! pics from Psych AND an added bonus, they're from NY. Sounds, looks, like a great day trip. I hadn't been to Albany myself in years. Last I was it had the feel of some of the industrial towns that are billowing tumbleweeds in NH, PA, Detroit and really all over the place now. It's a shame.
imo its all about the arts. if there are arts communities the rest follows suit. albany had that in spades, same with pa btw lots of culture and activity going on there. i especially liked the openness of the people yesterday. thats so rare in a city where most people have their eyes down to the sidewalk when they pass you. cant speak to detroit because i havent been there in many many years. people want to go to cities if there is something there for them. the two closest to me in the other direction, springfield and hartford are dead cities. there is nobody there after 5pm or as someone recently said the only people who venture in after dark are the drunks looking for cheap booze. that about sums it up but both of those cities are trying hard for renewal but are looking to build that renewal on things like malls with the gap or other expensive stores rather than a vibrant arts scene. nobody is going to go to the city, pay for parking, walk around on unsafe or perceived to be unsafe streets to shop for things that they can get at their local mall without all of the bother. bring on the arts, bring on the sports teams, fund theatre and museums make them low cost so families will come and spend money on the rest of what goes on in the cities and everybody wins.
The neat thing about it is the possibilities for urban renewal, sans the drugs and violence. That never worked in NY when the state tried to move the "ghetto" and centralize it to Newburgh. Keep sharing!
is newburgh impoverished? ive not been to the city only the airport there.
so today we headed off to explore albany ny. id wanted to do this last year but was recuperating and it never happened. so we packed up and headed west and we were there in less than 40 min.
i was very concerned when we hit the new york state thruway tho because it looks as tho a tornado followed the highway west. there are more fallen trees than trees standing and it looks as tho the birch are the hardest hit. healthy trees should be able to withstand the winter, even one as severe as the one we just had so seeing trees literall cut in half and falling over was shocking. im hoping that its not some tree epidemic. once back over the mass line all was well. very weird.
but back to albany. i loved it. what a fun place and the people were amazingly friendly. i think i talked to more strangers today than i have in the last year combined.
we spent a little time walking around the hudson river area. the river was swollen from snow melt but just beautiful. they do cruises down the river but we didnt bother seeking that out since it was raw with 50 mph winds and occasional wind blown rain. after that walk we decided to have lunch so we walked up toward the center of the city and found a little deli that was open and not too crowded. when we walked in we got the omg its lesbians vibe but they recovered nicely. we were all about the fun today and didnt wanna deal with homofoolbia so we were about to go back out when the owner/chef said hey come here and look at the menu, when we hesitated he said so dont look at the menu ill make you anything you want to eat. and since he was really trying here we decided to stay. so he makes these delish grilled cheese and ham sammys with a cup of homeade veggie soup and were sitting around when he and the regulars decide to do the crossword puzzle in the paper. so they are getting stuck and gf and i are giving them the answers which gets everybody talking together and all of the sudden the homo fear is gone and i feel like im at a cousins bar b que. so he gets to the last one and hes stumped and he asks his friend and he doesnt know the answer but says, ask the girls (er that would be us lol) if they get it right lunch is on me and if they get it wrong my lunch is on them so we laugh and agree and the hint? coen brothers. gf and i look at each other and at the same time say ethan and joel! theres a moment of silence as he fills in the spaces and they start laughing. theyre right! so the end result was that our lunch was free. and then in walks a cop and i swear to you that it was steve from jerry springer. lol. i know hes a chicago cop and all but this guy could be his twin so he pulls up a chair next to us and starts talking so where ya from and we tell him that were from the mass side of the road and exploring albany and we ask him to tell us all the groovy places to go and he looks at us and says youd like lark st its... um... like the village. (code word its the gay ghetto) so then the others start telling us places we should not miss like the gov mansion the legislative offices, the egg, the new york museum and were writing them all down. so they head us in the right direction for most of these things and also tell me that the park im thinking of is prolly washington park which is just past the gay ghetto. so we decide to do this in order and we walk to the ny museum first and BONUS there is no admission charge. we are thrilled. so we go in and there is a fabulous exhibit by rockwell kent. what an interesting human being. when scolded by joe mccarthy for lecturing him kent replied im not lecturing you. i get paid for my lectures. he designed the mural for the worlds fair, participated in labor strikes did many book illustrations and artistic grunt work to pay the bills allowing him to persue his passions, very cool exhibit. the museum also hosts the 911 world trade center archives and exhibits as well as a rare book floor. then we walked across the street to the empire state plaza which was huge and looked and felt more like it belonged to some euro city than albany. i cant wait to go back in the summer and see it full of people. then we walked up to the lark street area which was, as promised very villiage like. we had tea and chatted up the very cute woman at the tea shop and some of her very friendly patrons who walked in later. they steered us to some bookstores and gallerys in the area and suggested several places for dinner and we checked all of those out. we continued walking uphill (did imention that the whole city is one big uphill? i felt like id done 10 hours on the stair climber by the time wed left the city) and we found washington park and we walked a bit around there tho the rain and wind had picked up so we headed out of the park and back to the streets in case the thunder returned. then we did a brownstone tour talked to some people who lived in the area about their neighborhood. finally the kid was getting tired (and thank the goddess she was because i was exhausted 3 hours before that. lol) so we went and had dinner and checked out a few more shops and finally headed home. every time id mentioned to people in my town that i wanted to go to albany everybody had the same reaction, why? i was told it was boring and nothing was going on but i found the opposite to be true and id go there again i a heartbeat. heres a few photos that i took today. i took more but its time consuming loading them with the kinks in the photo system. i had to back date my computer to get the thing to work so heres the few i managed to get downloaded
Yeah! pics from Psych AND an added bonus, they're from NY. Sounds, looks, like a great day trip. I hadn't been to Albany myself in years. Last I was it had the feel of some of the industrial towns that are billowing tumbleweeds in NH, PA, Detroit and really all over the place now. It's a shame. The neat thing about it is the possibilities for urban renewal, sans the drugs and violence. That never worked in NY when the state tried to move the "ghetto" and centralize it to Newburgh. Keep sharing!
so today we headed off to explore albany ny. id wanted to do this last year but was recuperating and it never happened. so we packed up and headed west and we were there in less than 40 min.
i was very concerned when we hit the new york state thruway tho because it looks as tho a tornado followed the highway west. there are more fallen trees than trees standing and it looks as tho the birch are the hardest hit. healthy trees should be able to withstand the winter, even one as severe as the one we just had so seeing trees literall cut in half and falling over was shocking. im hoping that its not some tree epidemic. once back over the mass line all was well. very weird.
but back to albany. i loved it. what a fun place and the people were amazingly friendly. i think i talked to more strangers today than i have in the last year combined.
we spent a little time walking around the hudson river area. the river was swollen from snow melt but just beautiful. they do cruises down the river but we didnt bother seeking that out since it was raw with 50 mph winds and occasional wind blown rain. after that walk we decided to have lunch so we walked up toward the center of the city and found a little deli that was open and not too crowded. when we walked in we got the omg its lesbians vibe but they recovered nicely. we were all about the fun today and didnt wanna deal with homofoolbia so we were about to go back out when the owner/chef said hey come here and look at the menu, when we hesitated he said so dont look at the menu ill make you anything you want to eat. and since he was really trying here we decided to stay. so he makes these delish grilled cheese and ham sammys with a cup of homeade veggie soup and were sitting around when he and the regulars decide to do the crossword puzzle in the paper. so they are getting stuck and gf and i are giving them the answers which gets everybody talking together and all of the sudden the homo fear is gone and i feel like im at a cousins bar b que. so he gets to the last one and hes stumped and he asks his friend and he doesnt know the answer but says, ask the girls (er that would be us lol) if they get it right lunch is on me and if they get it wrong my lunch is on them so we laugh and agree and the hint? coen brothers. gf and i look at each other and at the same time say ethan and joel! theres a moment of silence as he fills in the spaces and they start laughing. theyre right! so the end result was that our lunch was free. and then in walks a cop and i swear to you that it was steve from jerry springer. lol. i know hes a chicago cop and all but this guy could be his twin so he pulls up a chair next to us and starts talking so where ya from and we tell him that were from the mass side of the road and exploring albany and we ask him to tell us all the groovy places to go and he looks at us and says youd like lark st its... um... like the village. (code word its the gay ghetto) so then the others start telling us places we should not miss like the gov mansion the legislative offices, the egg, the new york museum and were writing them all down. so they head us in the right direction for most of these things and also tell me that the park im thinking of is prolly washington park which is just past the gay ghetto. so we decide to do this in order and we walk to the ny museum first and BONUS there is no admission charge. we are thrilled. so we go in and there is a fabulous exhibit by rockwell kent. what an interesting human being. when scolded by joe mccarthy for lecturing him kent replied im not lecturing you. i get paid for my lectures. he designed the mural for the worlds fair, participated in labor strikes did many book illustrations and artistic grunt work to pay the bills allowing him to persue his passions, very cool exhibit. the museum also hosts the 911 world trade center archives and exhibits as well as a rare book floor. then we walked across the street to the empire state plaza which was huge and looked and felt more like it belonged to some euro city than albany. i cant wait to go back in the summer and see it full of people. then we walked up to the lark street area which was, as promised very villiage like. we had tea and chatted up the very cute woman at the tea shop and some of her very friendly patrons who walked in later. they steered us to some bookstores and gallerys in the area and suggested several places for dinner and we checked all of those out. we continued walking uphill (did imention that the whole city is one big uphill? i felt like id done 10 hours on the stair climber by the time wed left the city) and we found washington park and we walked a bit around there tho the rain and wind had picked up so we headed out of the park and back to the streets in case the thunder returned. then we did a brownstone tour talked to some people who lived in the area about their neighborhood. finally the kid was getting tired (and thank the goddess she was because i was exhausted 3 hours before that. lol) so we went and had dinner and checked out a few more shops and finally headed home. every time id mentioned to people in my town that i wanted to go to albany everybody had the same reaction, why? i was told it was boring and nothing was going on but i found the opposite to be true and id go there again i a heartbeat. heres a few photos that i took today. i took more but its time consuming loading them with the kinks in the photo system. i had to back date my computer to get the thing to work so heres the few i managed to get downloaded
